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> tangential if not orthogonal to the conversation

Er, sorry. My train of thought was: products need to be less harmful --> the aggregate character of the the industry needs to change --> putting more emotionally competent people in the industry --> overcoming the gender-related conflict in the industry. Which, I think is the conversation.

As to developers cf. management... What sort of developer fails to think about the possible consequences a given product might have on the lives of people they will never meet? #cough#



What sort of developer fails to think about the possible consequences a given product might have on the lives of people they will never meet?

Any developer on a project that doesn't have a formal analysis system for feeding thoughts about the lives of users into the product spec. And I mean beyond the "will it sell" sorts of analysis. So to answer your question: most.

I have worked on safety-critical systems, my train of thought goes: products need to be less harmful --> FMEA.

I actually look at it a bit like the way computer security can go overlooked. You can actively employ as many netsec hobbyists that spend their evenings hunting vulnerabilities, reading research and messing with security software as you want. And they might marginally increase the security of the software and systems, but the business has to decide to invest in security before they're allowed to focus on securing the system. Once the business has bought in, then you really don't need a huge cultural change towards security, just get enough guys to set up the quality systems, and then keep up with security analysis and reviews.

Edit: From a purely reductive standpoint, developers can tailor product to overseas markets with different cultures. As long as the business cares, and spends the effort to determining how to target a culture, the developers don't really matter.




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